Ralph's Daily Devotional - Thursday, July 12

The first commandment of Exodus 20:1-3 is "You shall worship no other gods." This is the first commandment of God because everything else is secondary and subservient to this. God identifies Himself this way: "I am the God who brought you out of Egypt." In other words, God is saying, "No gods delivered you other than Myself."

Scripture confirms that there is but one true God. Studying various world religions and philosophies, both then and now, one sees a multiplicity and diversity of beliefs. Among them are "atheism" which believes there is no god to worship, "agnosticism" which believes there may be a god but no one can know for sure, "polytheism" in which you have many various gods such as in Hinduism, "deism" which holds that God created the universes but no longer is immediately involved in its continued existence, and a host of other "isms."

They can't all be true, can they? Not according to what we read here. There is one God to whom we are to acknowledge and serve, and He is the God who brought His people out of of Egypt. But He is not only the God of the Hebrews, but of all people. He is the one who made a promise to Abraham to bless all the nations of the Earth and by whose word the very universe was created, and to whom all people will one day give an account.

It's obvious then that anyone not worshiping the one true God is guilty of idolatry, the worship of a false god or gods such as in Hinduism. This may sound harsh and extreme. It goes against the modern eclectic pluralism that is common in our existential age where people like to choose for themselves what to believe.